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Actually I have no problem with what professional sports teams pay their players and how much they charge for seats, provided that they don't hit the taxpayers up for money to build the stadiums.

The real salary steroid shot: arbitration. That's been the real reason why the salaries went to infinity and beyond over the years. The irony: At the birth of free agency, arbitration was more the owners' idea than the players'. They had no clue that the concept would blow up in their faces in short enough order.

As for Guiliani, he also made a stupid statement yesterday, attacking Boston and San Diego as being "lesser" cities than New York. What was the purpose of that?

I can't figure on San Diego, which is actually a nice seaside city (the piers and docks are lovely waterfronts), but on Boston, well, maybe he's just looking to stick it to the Red Sox, especially after one of their new ownership group said the other day that, so far as he was concerned, the "Curse of the Bambino" was a spell they intend to break. Giuliani, of course, thinks every city is lesser than New York. But you'd expect a mayor of any major city to think thus of other cities compared to his own. And you'd be hard pressed to argue each city's particular uniquenesses, good and bad...

Enjoyed your several comments very much. Well written. ASre you perhaps a sportswriter-in-disguise?....Re the comments about San Diego and Boston, Rudy was referring to a report last year that praised those two cities for their "community policing" models, while criticizing NYC's...Since the report came out, murder rates in SD and Boston have risedn sharply, while NYC's has come down....so Rudy was getting in a well-deserved shot at some critics..

FWIW, the problem with baseball was not arbitration, though it's hurt...it goes back to when the owners lost the lawsuit over collusion in not signing free-agents.....they had to pay several hundred million in fines/penalties....that's what scared the crap out of them..led them to roll over to thew players....oddly enough, the owners have a great issue, if they want to use it....lock out the players and force a salary cap........look, using round figures, Yankees and Mets each drew 3 million this year, and each have a payroll of 100 million....now suppose we have a $70 million payroll cap, and the teams annonce that they would REDUCE prices by $10 for each ticket, across the board.....it's revenue neutral, right. the fans would love it, support the owneres big time, and actually the teams would make more money, cause they'd sell MORE tickets and MORE concessions.......but the owners have no guts......but that may be changing.......